The Strong One
by Purple-Rose98
Summary: Emmaline McAllistor is rescued by Bruce Wayne. While she tries to fix herself she brings the Bats together and makes them a family. Her family. But in a family where everyone has a dark past, problems constantly arise. And it is up to Emma to keep them together and alive. This is the story of a very different Batgirl.


The Strong One

Run! Keep running!

The corridor stretched endlessly around her. The plush carpet of the casino crunched beneath her small feet. The lights overhead casting shadows on the walls, frightening the girl.

I can make it this time, she thought as she pushed her frail body past its limit.

Where did the door go?

Finally! The hallway came to an end….only to open into two more. Shoot!

The little girl stopped at the intersection, trying to catch her breath. Her wild curls shaking as she tried to decide which way to go. She straightened her back and went to the right. Smack!

She had run head first into one of the men who worked for the Don. I failed, again! She craned her neck to see Sef leering down at her. He wasn't the worst person to be caught by, but now that her plan had failed she had to get to the Don quickly. Even though the Don did bad things to her, he was her only protection and in Gotham protection was everything.

If only I was bigger. Being older would help too since she was only six.

She heard the slap before she felt it, the force of it knocking her to her backside.

"Where do you think you're going?" Sef jeered from above her. She struggled to get up without jostling her newly bruised jaw. When the girl's only answer was stare coldly at him, Sef cackled. "Oh right the mute. You know what I heard? I heard that your so screwed up that you can't make any sound, not even when the Boss is screwing you." He sizes her up, licking his lips, "I could make you scream."

The mute girl didn't shudder at his barely concealed threat, instead she glared unblinkingly at him. Unsatisfied with her response, the underpaid and undervalued henchmen grabbed her thick curls and tugged until her feet dangled above the floor and brought her to his face. The girl smelled the cheap cigars and whiskey on his breath. Combined with his astounding B.O., she was sure she would die of suffocation.

"Drop her, Myers." When Sef dropped her in his shock, she ran towards the large shadows, Johns. No first name just Johns. He was one of two people she was afraid of the other being his boss, the Don.

"B-Boss man" Sef hiccupped, "I was just-"

"Touching the Don's property. You've been here long enough to know that the girls, especially the mute, are off-limits" Johns' quiet voice scared her more than 100 Sefs: his voice reminded her of a storm, quiet one moment, loud the next.

Sef in his drunken state didn't understand that now was not the time to argue. The Don's latest shipment of girls had been stopped by the Bat. With that being said, the Don nor Johns were in a good mood, so when the drunken idiot began to shoot his mouth off, the mute girl shuffled behind Johns and closer to the door. Not waiting for permission as should have. Johns' gun clicked and she felt the butt of the barrel against her forehead.

As she looked up fearfully, John said, " Stay right there because the next escape attempt you make will be your last. Favorite or not." Then he slid the gun from her head... and shot Sef in between the eyes.

Her mouth opened in silent scream as blood splattered around and on her. Johns never once looked at the body, but stared deep in her eyes; cold unflinching blue met her terrified hazel. "Go" he whispered, "the Don wants you in his room."

She ran from the hallway, from those frozen blue eyes, from Sef and his now lifeless body, straight for the Don's suite. Not seeing the exit from all of this nor how close she had been to it.

She told herself that Sef's death was not because of her failed escape attempt. It was impossible…right? Yeah, totally impossible. It wasn't unheard of, the Don or Johns killing a man who touched the Don's "daughters" as he called them.

She caught her breath down the hall from the suite. She took deep breathes to regain her.., what was the new word she learned? Composture? No composure. But she kept replaying Sef's death. It was so…med-medvival? Med-med-medieval!

No, she thought as she walked the rest of the way to the Don's room, not medieval. It was so Gotham.

Before she got the suite's door, she could smell him. The Don's stench was strong it gave her headache to be within feet of him. But she learned to push through the smell and keep her composure. She learned that word from a book she stole from a lady at the bus stop in front of the hotel. It was written by Jane-something and the mute thought it was a good book, but she didn't really know since she couldn't read. She learned words by finding them in a book and then looking them up in a dictionary.

The mute girl stepped outside the door and sighed. Just go. Get it done. She told herself. She sighed once more and walked through the double doors to see that the girls had started on the Don already. Hands, legs, and other things covered the Don, barely. Not well enough for him not to notice her. She looked into his gray eyes and saw them light up at her. The purple-black light that was always around him, glowed as he beckoned her to him. She didn't know what light was but it was always on him and only him.

The mute shivered and walked towards the bed as the Don shoved the others away and pulled her beneath him. As he moved on her….in her, she focused on anything but his eyes: the hair of her "sisters", the moon, the stars, the Bat light. And when the Don and the others went to sleep, she snuck out the window and climbed the fire escape to the roof of the crappy hotel, that was her hell. As she stood against the nighttime backdrop, her pale skin illuminated, her brown curls swaying in the summer breeze, her hazel brown eyes locked on the luminescent moon and the mute girl whispered, " I am Emmaline McAllistor and I will be strong."


End file.
